Air fresheners and fragrance dispensers are used in the home, automobile and other closed environments for "freshening" the air and providing a pleasing scent to the environment. Many different prior art air fresheners and fragrance dispensers have been designed for use in combination with a furnace or other large and bulky air handling systems. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,786,714 to Saleny discloses a home air freshener having a sleeve mounted to a furnace wall, and a tube with a wick contained therein slidable in the sleeve. The wick is connected to a source of fragrance producing liquid. The furnace air is drawn over the tube and wick for producing a fragrance which is distributed throughout the environment supplied by the furnace by means of the furnace air. This type of air freshener has been found undesirable because it only operates in combination with a furnace or other larger air handling device.
Other prior art air freshener and fragrance dispenser designs include units having self contained fans for recirculating air and evaporating a fragrance liquid which typically is drawn on a wick. Typical examples of this type of air freshener and fragrance dispenser include the inventions disclosed in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,911,871, 2,068,518, 2,828,953, 3,633,881, and 4,064,203. Many of these types of prior art devices do not provide any means for diverting a controlled flow of air against the wick or for limiting exposure of the wick to the flow of air and thus limiting the amount of fluid evaporated from the wick. Also in many of these prior art devices, only the end of the wick is exposed. It is more desirable to expose a portion of the longitudinal length of the wick material rather than only an end portion as in some of the prior art devices.